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From: sdm7g@elvis.med.Virginia.EDU (Steven D. Majewski)
Subject: VMS => WNT (was: Interested in PowerPC for Linux / FreeBSD / NetBSD?)
Message-ID: <D1Lrr1.Kn@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Bcc: sdm7g@Virginia.EDU
Organization: University of Virginia
References: <3cilp3$143@news-2.csn.net> <MICHAELV.94Dec27212938@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> <dyue.788655868@femto> <MICHAELV.94Dec28203707@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 02:47:25 GMT
Lines: 76
In article <MICHAELV.94Dec28203707@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>,
Michael L. VanLoon <michaelv@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> wrote:
>In article <dyue.788655868@femto> dyue@femto.cs.umn.edu (Dongxiao Yue) writes:
>
> In <MICHAELV.94Dec27212938@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> michaelv@MindBender.HeadCandy.com (Michael L. VanLoon) writes:
>
> >In article <3ddtrp$4bl@newsflash.concordia.ca> ct_orega@ECE.Concordia.CA (Chris O'Regan) writes:
>
> > Has anyone noticed that if you replace each letter in WNT with the letter
> > preceding it in the alphabet, you'll end up with VMS? :-)
>
> >Has anyone noticed that this joke is about three years old?
>
> Not a joke, it is truth.
> Ever used VMS?
>
>I'm wall acquainted with the roots of both VMS and Windows NT. And,
>I've used both extensively, yes. Where does the 'not a joke' apply?
>
(1) Dave Cutler.
(2) I haven't *used* NT, so I don't know anything about it's outward
"look and feel", but I've read descriptions of some of the internals,
and to an old VMS-er, the simularities are obvious.
(3) Outside of Microsoft, DEC seems to be the biggest booster of NT.
*THEY* clearly see it as "VMS-II"
(4) Many of the folks I see adopting NT are also moving to it from VMS
- *THEY* seem to see it as "VMS-II" ( although that may be entirely
coincidental to #3 above. )
(5) In support of the above points, I've dredged up an old posting
from comp.os.research, to demonstrate that I'm not alone in some of
those views:
|From: leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu
|Newsgroups: comp.os.research
|Subject: NT inside [was: Mach vs. Amoeba]
|Date: 25 Mar 1993 17:32:55 GMT
|Organization: Rutgers University Department of Computer Science
|Message-ID: <1osqc8INNavp@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>
|
|
|I don't know if there are any such papers, but if you really want to under-
|stand what is going on in NT, learn about VMS. To someone who knows VMS
|internals, NT is "variations on a theme". Large pieces - the low-level
|synchronization, the memory manager - are the same design as in VMS. Other
|things are improved versions - the I/O system is a cleaner version of the VMS
|I/O system, for example. A few things have been simplified for portability,
|the prime example being AST's (called <something> Procedure Calls in NT, I
|forget what).
|
|Dave Cutler has designed three OS's: RSX, VMS, NT. There's a common thread
|running through all three; many ideas are common to all of them. Each, how-
|ever, also has a flavor of "keep the good ideas of the old, throw out the
|bad" - and add in important new things along the way.
|
|Those who think that the design of Unix or MS/DOS is "how an OS looks inside"
|should expect to start all over again when learning about NT's structure.
|
| -- Jerry
[ I won't even TRY to figure out the Newsgroups: line in this thread,
but at least I've changed the subject line. ]
---| Steven D. Majewski (804-982-0831) <sdm7g@Virginia.EDU> |---
---| Computer Systems Engineer University of Virginia |---
---| Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics |---
---| Box 449 Health Science Center Charlottesville,VA 22908 |---